Oh boy do I wish I was getting paid, let's just say that everyone who knows me, comes to me when they should probably go to a therapist instead.
*sigh* If I knew how to say 'no', maybe I'd be less constantly swamped and exhausted, but I'm very bad at that, and of course everybody needs urgent help literally one after the other and my little brother is flailing about in his relationship, so I'm basically being an on-call couple counsellor. Which is how I ended up awake for two days handling people's issues instead of sleeping. Ugh, teenagers-
Like Jesus guys, I know I'm nice to talk with and you feel better afterwards but juggling several people's personal problems, helping them figure out what they need and shit ain't easy. There's a reason people get paid tons for this shit but I'm not, just because I can't math and get that damn psychology degree I want.
Sorry, this ended up being a rant- to be fair, most people would probably either be able to do this without as much exhaustion maybe (or simply not bother maybe), but I'm (almost certainly) autistic and doing stuff like talking people down from suicide is stressful and dysregulating on top of struggling to keep myself alive. But like, I can't not do it... you know?
...I was up all night doing couple counselling again, so I'm oversharing again... oops-
Ah, I see. And here I am on the opposite side of that spectrum - completely disregarded by everyone! Woo!
...Not that I have any advice to give, unless it involves dead people. >_>
I have no idea how much math is needed for a psychology degree, but I'm also shit at it. My bf at the time was literally the only reason I passed Statistics many years ago, and it just barely counted for credit when I applied for the local Funeral Service Education program a couple years ago. I still had to take Accounting, but... this being during the pandemic it was completely online, and the homework questions were exactly the same as the test questions. If one had the foresight to print out those questions and answers beforehand...
And that's how I bullshitted my way through maths. Thanks Pearson :D Now if only I didn't need anxiety meds to make it through an interview without getting a panic attack.
Hmm, speaking of which, I did have to take Developmental Psychology for that degree. Still have the book, it was really interesting! And part of the class was this little online program where you raise a child from a baby to adulthood, and I named him Nagito... though I chose not to shake him as a baby. :P
Oh it's entirely because my special interest is behavioural and communication psychology. Honestly, if it wasn't, I doubt anyone would talk to me-
Technically speaking the psychology courses don't have a lot of math, it's just in the entry requirements. So, it's all because I failed my mathematics O'Levels with a solid F9, I even retook all the exams the year after and I improved! To an E8. Which is still a fail grade. OTL
Didn't matter that my English got an A1, just because I don't have a pass in maths, I literally can't enter ANY higher education courses, because the ones that have low requirements are assumed for 'not good with academics' so even the lowest courses require 'Only Maths pass'. Gee fucking thanks, mine is the opposite problem.
Neurotypical world just can't imagine the possibility of a studious academic theologian type person being bad at numbers. So I can't pursue humanitarian academics because I can only do humanitarian academics. OTL
Developmental psychology is honestly one of the most fun areas of psychology, I wish I could take that course TvT
Good god. I would hope there was something that could be done about that, that seems extremely unfair. o_o
Then again, I gave up on any hope for assistance long ago. I'm autistic myself (diagnosed with what used to be called Aspergers, now it's just high-functioning autism). As much as people claim they're accommodating and willing to help you with your disabilities... yea, no. Nobody gives a fuck, in fact it just makes you even more disposable.
So I just have to deal with life as though nothing's wrong with me... shit, when I started working at Amazon the government wanted like $7k in disability payments back. Like... just because I managed to get a job doesn't mean it went away for good. It's a good thing I have very supportive parents, though they won't be around forever. :/
Well, it ain't cheap, but you can always buy the textbooks for what you want to study! I enjoyed that program so much I bought the new edition of the embalming textbook after graduating - it's way better organized than the last one, and it has full-color pictures throughout... which would've been nice when I was learning how to find arteries in people's necks. And there's a "Practical Guide to Homicide Investigation" textbook I've been looking at for a while...
Yeah, it sucks pretty bad, I was out of school long before dyscalculia was even acknowledged as existing in my country. Most teachers had never even heard of it and my math tutor was like "gaaah that explains so much" when I told him about it a few years later x'D
It's actually pretty awesome that quite a few of my readers have shared that they're also autistic like us, I feel like it's just a thing that we gravitate towards fellow neurodivergent people, my friend group are also all NDs, partner's got ADHD and is also autistic too- way higher functioning than me though, somehow x'D
It's kinda crazy how much of my life makes sense now... wish I'd been diagnosed sooner, but, oh well, can't be helped x')
Yikes, that's fucked up, geez, shitty government... Yeah, accommodations for us are pretty shit, I'm honestly not expecting anything to improve after I get my diagnosis, besides my own sense of self x'D I'm pretty lucky my mom and partner are really supportive too, I want a job so I can contribute, but like, I keep getting assholes who fire me for unknown reasons, even when I've done my job well *sigh*
Dayum, homicide investigation, that sounds fun, ugh, I want time and energy to read shit again. I haven't touched a book in months... well, besides the one I'm writing. Gawd, juggling four different writing projects is awful, why am I doing this to myself- TvT
Four?! Sheesh, I just tend to forget all about whatever I was writing before and focus on one at a time!
I get you on the firing, though... I was once a happy funeral director/embalmer intern, I actually enjoyed going to work every day... then I got laid off, and then the company installed a huge fuck-off fence and motorized gate on their property shortly after. (To be fair, there is quite the homeless problem in town, but... sigh.) You people need more deathcare workers, all the baby boomers are going to start dying off soon! :P
...I even miss going to the medical examiner to pick up decedents, even though the garage alone reeks of old, messy corpse ._.
Haha yeah, I play life on Hard mode, always have and always will. Even more than I realised when taking autism into account xP
Sure sounds like an interesting job, though I personally find talking people more fun xD Sucks that we can't just be allowed to quietly do the thing we're both interested in, and good at, in the corner. Neurotypical society just has to cockblock us for no apparent logical reason or benefit.
Heh, South Korea would probably offer you a job though, their mortuaries have way more customers than the gynecologists xD
It's fascinating! I do want to kind of specialize in Asian and Pacific Islander services, as my ultimate goal in life is to move to Hawaii and simply live out my life somewhere beautiful... of course, besides being expensive as fuck there, the island I want to move to only has 6 funeral homes to choose from. But you don't need a license to be a funeral director there, nor do you need to take continuing education!
Buddhist funerals are so lovely, with the chanting and altars and stuff. I don't know much about Korean practices, though, mostly just Japanese. Guess that just means there's more books to buy! Death is a great way to learn about different cultures. :D
Hehe, you're welcome and I apologise, it is both an awful and wonderful feeling, getting fixated on a new direction of one's special interest x3
I do agree that death is a great way to learn about culture. You can see, from whether the elderly are more heavily mourned vs the young, that it reflects which the cultures value more, wisdom/history or the hope/future.
In a very very very very generalised and overly broad sense, I feel like Asian countries have a tendency to lean towards more focus on elderly passing away than children, whereas the West tends to fixate more on the young.
Which makes it obvious why some of the more progressive concepts get pushed more openly in the West whereas those ideas were pushed more covertly in Asia. It's still happening in Asia too but it's much quieter and subtle since tradition is kinda on a pedestal of obligated respect.
Yea, I see what you're getting at. Here we're getting more into environmentally-friendly disposition methods - aquamation, human composting, natural burials with no chemicals or plastics, having your ashes turned into a coral reef among other things. In Japan anyway death and the funeral industry is still super taboo, despite some modernizations. Some people thought having remains interred in a special columbarium with a Buddha that lights up when you want to mourn your loved one was disrespectful (Each niche was otherwise unmarked and only took up like 8x8 inches, so there were hundreds of those Buddhas in there, good luck finding your loved one otherwise).
Hell, cremation was only deemed acceptable by the Catholic church back in the 50's. Before then they forbade it because they thought Jesus can't bring you back to life if you're reduced to ashes... nevermind the people who died and were buried centuries ago. Now it's fine but they still prefer burial... unless you choose flameless cremation or composting. Jesus can't bring you back from that, apparently. Sigh.
And don't get me started on embalming...
(It goes without saying, should you ever need information about the subject... I probably know about it.)
Hahaha that's pretty funny, since bodies decompose, so I don't think Jesus would have an easy time bringing a fragile skeleton to life, even mummies would struggle to move and those are preserved really well xD
In my country, land is extremely scarce, so we're pretty much only able to cremate, we do have some burial plots, but they're not for purchase, they're for renting for like a handful of years by family members and are extremely expensive. Once the timer runs out, our government will dig 'em back up to cremate. It's actually a bit of a joke amongst us, 'even when dead, you still can't own your home, you can only rent it'. xP
Hehe, thanks for the offer, I'll probably end up taking you up on it when I'm writing funeral practices for the fictional civilisation in my book =D
I've heard about places like that... what country do you live in? I've always thought Europe somewhere but they also do that in countries like Singapore. They'll have the main tomb for burial, then at its base they'll have niches for all the cremated relatives.
Hehe, as Sebastian says, I can't go around telling you all my secrets now, can I? At least not in public for now, even though I'm a chronic oversharer x'D
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